


played double-dutch with a hand grenade.

by projectfreelancer



Category: Ava's Demon
Genre: Character Study, Child Soldiers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 04:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10756311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/projectfreelancer/pseuds/projectfreelancer
Summary: crow and raven grow up playing with weapons for toys.





	played double-dutch with a hand grenade.

**Author's Note:**

> a character study for raven & crow. i love the entire Arrow family & want them to all be deranged.
> 
> WARNING for: child soldier stuff, kids killing people

The girls grow up with glass for teeth. They are razor sharp, they are carved out of bullets, handled finely like two princess-soldiers should be treated. Their first gifts as infants are plastic knives, and they learn quickly that to be an Arrow, one must be willing to do anything asked of them.

Olai showers them with undivided attention since they are born.  _ Shoot like this; Slice like that.  _ He is their mentor, someone they admire from afar and fear in the secrecy of their room. To them, he is a soldier; a killer; someone to become and emulate. He is their superior, and if he decided they were not fit for the Arrow name, their parents would allow him to get rid of them in any means he saw fit.

Odin, they gossip, is jealous of them. Jealous of their skills in training, of how Magpie follows them like a kicked lost puppy, of how they have each other to trust.  _ An Arrow can never trust another Arrow,  _ Olai had once told them, eyes glaring into Odin’s over the dinner table. Crow had stifled a snort at the comment, her finger poking at Raven’s arm under the table. But Olai continued,  _ We’re family, but spilled blood is much more fun than the concept of shared blood.  _ And then Crow’s hand clasped around Raven’s, now stifling a sharp inhale.

When Crow had nudged her way into Raven’s bed that night, shuffling close to her, whispering, “Do you think Olai is going to kill Odin one day? I know he’s useless, but he’s our—” She stops herself short of admitting the sentimentality. She drags the blanket over her. “Do you think he’ll kill us one day if he wanted?”

Raven closes her eyes snapped-shut, wishing or praying or hoping she was asleep. “I don’t know.” It answers both questions. 

Though the girls are a duo-pairing that can not be separated, they try their hardest at forming their own child-identities. Raven strings a bow through her hair and craves over the guns plastered on the walls in Olai’s room. Crow learns how to lose herself in studying and aches for the knives that Odin practices with late at night. Separately, they form their own abilities: Raven as the gunpowder; Crow as the double-edged blade.  _ Now people won’t think we’re the same,  _ Raven says when she gives Crow a knife she stole from Odin’s room.  _ People always think twins are the same people. But we’re not the same. We complete each other. _

Raven sleeps with her hands jagged-curled around a gun; Crow sleeps with her hand clasped around the jagged-hilt of a blade. They grow up learning how to be an Arrow: what it takes to be a soldier, how to intertwine their ways through their brother’s fights, how to be children that own guns and knives and have a kill-streak.

“I want us to be the heirs to our business,” Raven says one morning, sun blaring through the window, hands busy with polishing a new gun. It had been a gift from Olai, a gift for her first  _ true  _ kill. It had been a dual-mission with Crow.  _ Kill our enemies with ease and you’ll both be true Arrows,  _ Olai had said to them before they left their planet, and they giggled in harmony.

Raven’s kill was simple: a bullet to the knee to falter the target, and a gunshot to the head to finish him off. Had been too easy, the man faltering at the appearance of two children wielding weapons. Crow was in charge of his second-in-command: letting a gunshot pierce his stomach, then pulling out a knife to plunge into the man’s stomach, an evil smile on her lips, and twists, blood pulling on her hands. The mission had gone smoothly enough, a perfect victory for their twelfth birthday.

“We’re already allowed to go on missions now,” Crow sing-songs, sitting across from Raven on her bed, feet swinging back-and-forth. “Only at barely twelve. That’s faster than Odin was certified.”

“Not hard,” Raven interrupts, “We both know how dumb he is.”

Crow’s laugh rings coldly, fingers caressing her newly gifted blade. It’s sharp, had been stained with blood days ago, the memory raw in Raven’s mind. “ _ And  _ Olai. Olai was twelve and a half when he completed his first mission.”

“Mom and Dad love Olai, but he’s old. They’ll choose us for sure. And now even Magpie can’t beat us. It’ll be us for sure.” A stretching silence at the mention of Magpie, as if it’s a curse to mention their dying sister.

Raven’s fingers find their way to the trigger, as if on instinct, as if she was born for it. She itches to pull it, to feel the burn of killing again, anything to relive the joy that pulses through her at the crime. “One day, we can kill our brothers and make sure it’s us.”

Crow raises her eyebrows at her sister, fingers stilling on the point of her blade. She meets Raven’s eyes. “What if mom and dad only want one of us?”

Raven feels fear flush through her, nauseated at the suggestion. But her voice barely shakes as she says, “We were born together. We have to die together too.”

“Promise?” Sometimes, though Raven would fear to admit to even a god, she is afraid of her sister. Afraid of the way she holds her knife, how she pulls at Raven’s hair as she ties her bow, how she looks enthralled at the way blood drowns her hands. But Crow is all she has, and she is silent.

  
“I promise,” Raven whispers, skin itching-cold at how the lie feels on her tongue.


End file.
